Page 17

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked his messages. Pierre.

What’s taking you so long? Laurent’s waiting below with a car.

The distraction to draw Irena King’s and the Faucherian gardien’s attention wouldn’t last forever. He grabbed her hand, reluctantly guiding her away from his toys and toward the fireplace that concealed his escape route. He’d never used it, but he’d slept better knowing it was there.

She gaped as he slid aside the grate full of firewood to reveal the hole beneath. “Oh, it’s a…” She stared down at her high heels. “A ladder.”

Constructing an external addition to this room, to the building, would’ve been too obvious, and unlikely to get planning permission, so Alain had taken advantage of the old chimney that ran from the top of the building to the bottom. He’d paid off a government official to declare the chimney structurally unsound and issue orders to the tenants of the apartments below to board up their access to it. It was an ideal situation for him, not so for a woman in heels.

His phone buzzed. Pierre again.

Hurry up.

No time to waste. “I’ll go first. You follow close behind me.” She could decide to run once he was halfway into the chimney, but she wouldn’t. He had her photos, and he’d wager she’d follow him to the ends of the earth for those. The grimoire, too. He’d get to the bottom of why soon enough.

Alain muttered the words to break the ward he’d cast across the entrance. It wouldn’t have any effect on him, but he wasn’t about to risk Grace’s life on her being able to slide through it like she had the one on his front door. He hesitated. Now might be the time she’d try to hit him with a spell.

“Don’t try anything stupid, little thief. I guarantee there’s not a spell you can come up with that I can’t counter. All you’ll do is piss me off.” He brought his wolf close to the surface and let a hint of his power roll over her.

She paled a little and, satisfied she’d forego a surprise attack, he squeezed into the chimney, hugging the archive boxes to his chest. He hoped she wasn’t claustrophobic. When only his head was visible, he beckoned her to join him. “I won’t let you fall.”

For a moment, he thought she was going to back away, to take her chances and run, but she squared her shoulders, got down on her hands and knees and backed toward him. His cock perked up and took notice. Fucking inappropriate. Where Grace was concerned, Alain had no control over his body.

She put one foot on the top rung, then eased her other foot in, searching for a foothold. The tightness in his chest eased when she found it and continued her hesitant descent. He shifted down a few steps, giving her space. Then she was in the tunnel, her rounded ass in line with his face, his mouth, his nose. He forced himself to continue down until he was level with her legs. Were they not covered in yellow satin, were they bare, he might be tempted to drop a kiss on her thighs or lick the sensitive back of her knees. He’d never cursed his enhanced vision. He did now. Were he human, he’d be as much in the dark as she was.

Grace followed him down the ladder, one step at a time. Each step, each brush of her body against his, the stretch of her dress taut against her sublime ass, a delicious torture. By the time they reached the bottom, he was ready to abandon Cordelia’s grimoire, his pack, everything that mattered, to have her right then and there in the soot-covered confines of the old chimney.

She dropped to the floor beside him and turned around. The only thing keeping them apart were the two archive boxes in his arms. A belated reminder of why they were here, and why he was running from his own apartment.

Alain opened the old hatch at the bottom of the chimney and crawled out, taking in deep lungsful of cold night air, wrestling his instincts under control. He stood in the side alleyway between his building and the next, the light from the streetlamps not reaching in here. Another advantage of his secret entrance. As Grace crawled through the hatch, he scouted their surrounds with every enhanced sense he had.

The reflective green eyes of a cat, frozen mid stride, were gone in an instant as it slunk away. At one end of the alleyway, toward the front of his building, the rumble of passing traffic, a few faint voices, and footsteps receding. At the other end, nothing but the whisper of a breeze in the trees. But his nose told him his ride was there, waiting. Laurent. The musk of a werewolf, muted but unmistakable.

“Come on.” He placed a hand on her lower back and ushered her out of the alleyway. It wouldn’t take long for Irena and Dubois to recognize the distraction for what it was.

An engine started, and a black SUV rolled to a stop in front of them. Alain opened the door and guided her into the back, climbing in after her. She shuffled over to the far side, and he let her, but as soon as she’d settled, he dragged the seatbelt over her body and buckled her in. In the front, Laurent quirked an eyebrow at him, but he ignored him, buckling his own belt. Laurent smirked but said nothing as he steered the car into traffic. Louis and his big mouth.

It was a good thing Laurent was mated, or Alain might well have launched himself into the front and throttled the younger wolf for so much as looking at Grace. As it was, he was struggling to keep from unclipping her seatbelt and dragging her onto his lap. That she was wearing his jacket and was covered in his scent went some way to mollify his wolf. It would have to do.

Placing the archive boxes across his lap, he retrieved his phone and dialed Maxime.

The call connected, and Maxime’s voice was like a bullet down the line. “Tell me you still have it.”

“Oui.”

“Putain, Alain. You left the grimoire unguarded, knowing they were in the building. Irena King and a Faucherian. An agent for the fucking DGSE. I can’t believe you were so irresponsible.”

Alain pinched the bridge of his nose. The twins had been telling tales. Not ideal. Not when it came to him and Maxime.

“This is exactly why you’re not fit to—” Maxime heaved out a sigh. “No more games.” His voice was quieter, but it vibrated with everything he didn’t say, and the years of animosity between them. “You get it and your ass back here right now.”

“We’re on our way. We’ll be there in just under three hours. And for the record, I didn’t know he was DGSE.”

“We?” Caution crept into Maxime’s voice.

Maybe the twins hadn’t told Maxime everything.

“Grace Williams is with me.”